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24241. (Henry Pur­cell) Dido and Aeneas [com­plete opera; d. Pin­nock; von Otter, Var­coe, Rogers]
24242. (Fuck But­tons) Slow Focus
24243. (Tomasso Albi­noni) Dou­ble Oboe Con­certo, Op.7 #11: Ada­gio
24244. (Tomasso Albi­noni) Dou­ble Oboe Con­certo, Op.7 #2: Ada­gio
24245. (Tomasso Albi­noni) Sin­fo­nia for Two Oboes: Ada­gio Read more »

It would be inter­est­ing to imag­ine what would have hap­pened to blues­man JB Lenoir if he had lived beyond his span of 38 years, cut short by an auto­mo­bile acci­dent. Unlike most blues artists of the fifties, he was polit­i­cally ori­ented. One of the three albums I have, Eisen­hower Blues (1954), is a satir­i­cal stab at that President’s poli­cies. He was active in the Civil Rights move­ment. Another album I have, a com­pi­la­tion put together to accom­pany Mar­tin Scorcese’s film his­tory of the blues, draws heav­ily from Eisen­hower Blues and other Chess record­ings from the 1950s. So does a 1993 Charly label com­pi­la­tion I just found, Mama Watch Your Daugh­ter. Dur­ing this period, despite some chart suc­cess with songs like “Don’t Dog Your Woman”, Lenoir had to sup­port him­self work­ing in kitchens. It’s in the six­ties, just before his sud­den death, that he achieved real recog­ni­tion. Down In Mis­sis­sippi, issued posthu­mously in 1970, dates from that period. 

Lenoir sang in falsetto, his voice float­ing like a bub­ble on waves of rhythm gui­tar, and the arrange­ments were closer to early Rock ‘n’ Roll than to tra­di­tional blues. He affected gar­ish suits, and oth­er­wise fit well into the Rock ‘n’ Roll esthetic. His later work was elec­tric boo­gie, and he should really be seen as hav­ing a promi­nent place in the his­tory of Rock. Cer­tainly, a num­ber of promi­nent rock artists were famil­iar with, and were influ­enced by his work — John May­all, for exam­ple. Per­haps, if he had lived past 1967, that would now be the case. 

Although you will usu­ally see his name printed as “J. B. Lenoir”, his first name was actu­ally “JB”, which was not ini­tials for any­thing. His sur­name was pro­nounced in the French manner.

24214. (John Field) Piano Con­certo #1 in E-f, H.27
24215. (John Field) Piano Con­certo #2 in A-f, H.31
24216. (Olivier Mes­si­aen) Huits préludes pour piano (1928–29)
24217. (Booker T & The MGs) Green Onions
24218. (Gia­como Meyer­beer) Le Prophète [com­plete opera; d. Lewys; Horne, McCracken,
. . . . . . Scotto] Read more »